Today's #dailysignal looks at artificial scarcity and artificial abundance and how those two man-made phenomena are colliding in with regards to the new breakthrough obesity drug. Artificial abundance got us here (to a point where by 2025 45% - that's almost HALF - of the world's population is projected to be overweight), now artificial scarcity (and the deadweight loss of monopolies, aka patents, cause around life-saving drugs) may keep us here for a while yet...
How has artificial scarcity impacted your life?
Has artificial abundance of goods created externalities worse than real scarcity/
Should states subsidise anti obesity drugs?
Should states protect private monopolies around anti obesity drugs?
Let me know your thoughts...
Breakthrough weight control drugs : https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/08/gamechanging-weight-loss-drug-made-available-nhs-semaglutide-obesity
Real scarcity : https://whatthefuturenow.com/2022/01/10/real-scarcity/
Half the world could soon be overweight : https://food.ndtv.com/news/almost-half-of-world-may-be-overweight-by-2050-researchers-assess-consequences-of-current-food-habit-2327901
Open-source insulin to fight back against artificial scarcity : https://bigthink.com/health/insulin-costs/
Obesity costs South Africa 0.67% of GDP per annum : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9004491/
Artificial abundance vs artificial scarcity